


Je te veux

by Pennyplainknits, toomuchplor, xenakis



Series: Steinway!verse [22]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Music & Bands, Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: MP3, Classical Music, Community: pod-together, Fanart, Format: Streaming, M/M, Podfic, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-09
Updated: 2011-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:56:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 6,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pennyplainknits/pseuds/Pennyplainknits, https://archiveofourown.org/users/toomuchplor/pseuds/toomuchplor, https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenakis/pseuds/xenakis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <div class="center"><img/></div><br/>The story of ‘happily ever after.’
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, readers!
> 
> To fully enjoy this project, please begin by downloading the podfic of the story here : [MP3](http://podfic.jinjurly.com/audfiles/4201107191.zip) | [M4B](http://podfic.jinjurly.com/audfiles/4201107192.zip)  
> For reasons that will become clear to you soon enough, this work is best viewed in chapter-by-chapter format. Just start your recording, go to Chapter One, and let Arthur guide you along :P
> 
> If it is more convenient for you, you can also set the page to "View entire work" and use the streaming widget embedded in the first chapter to read and listen to the entire story in one go.
> 
> Whichever way you choose, we hope you will enjoy this project, we certainly had a blast working on it!
> 
> ~Plor, Penny and xen
> 
>  
> 
> As there was in our previous collaboration on [Ach, des Knaben Augen](http://archiveofourown.org/works/153587), there are many musical interludes and excerpts in this podfic. Here is a list of all the songs and pieces used in the recording, as well as a mix of all of them in their entirety, should the podfic have fueled your interest.
> 
> 1\. Je te veux - Éric Satie - Pascal Rogé (1984)  
> 2\. Children's Corner: The Little Shepherd - Claude Debussy - Momo Kodama (2008)  
> 3\. Children's Corner: Golliwogg's Cakewalk - Claude Debussy - Momo Kodama (2008)  
> 4\. Single Note Scales in Russian Pattern - Alexander Peskanov  
> 5\. Manon: "À quoi bon l'économie" - Jules Massenet - Michel Dens (1955)  
> 6\. Manon: "Finale" - Jules Massenet - Pierre Montreux, Orchestre et Choeur de l'Opéra Comique (1955)  
> 7\. Sous le ciel de Paris - Edith Piaf (1954)
> 
> Download the podmix [here](http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MIO4LUI5).

Eames is a brilliant singer — some say, indeed, the _most_ brilliant singer — and so this spring, aged just-past-thirty, Eames finds himself living and working in Paris and singing the part of Lescaut at the Bastille Opera House. The only really terrible thing about any of this is that Eames is far away from his brilliant — _most_ brilliant — husband, Arthur. Eames misses Arthur awfully.

Tonight, he is thinking about the spring air, the roll and whoosh of traffic on the road where he’s walking; Eames is thinking about how he will continue his hunt for the best tea in the 14e arrondissement tomorrow; he is pondering the white blooms on that caged tree, trying to decide if they’re cherry or apple blossoms. Eames is definitely not thinking at all about Arthur, not even a little. That’s why it’s so surprising, when on turning into the lobby of his modest hotel, Eames sees Arthur standing at the concierge’s desk, having an argument.

For a moment Eames’ mind darts to and fro, half-convinced that he must be imagining things. Maybe he’s asleep and dreaming, or maybe that man just strongly resembles Arthur. But then Eames blinks, and his pulse steadies, and he’s able to admit that his first impression was correct: against all odds and reason, that is Arthur standing in the hotel lobby. Arthur, who’d hung up the phone not sixteen hours earlier making pitiful noises about all the work that needed doing at the conservatory.

Eames loves Arthur very much. He loves Arthur to the moon and back, he loves him like meat loves salt, he’ll love him forever and always, and for as long as Eames is living.

But all this love aside, Eames can never quite resist teasing Arthur when the opportunity presents itself.

So Eames sidles up casually, Arthur too involved in his argument with the concierge to notice him, and eavesdrops long enough to gather that Arthur is trying to gain admittance to Eames’ room, and the concierge is insisting he cannot allow such a thing. Arthur is answering in perfect, if American-sounding, schoolboy French; the concierge is refusing to debase his mother tongue in such a way, speaking in perfect, if French-accented, schoolboy English.

(Something Eames is trying not to notice, because it is distracting, is that Arthur is wearing his leather Zegna coat magnificently; more, his hair is neat in spite of just having gotten off a transatlantic flight and he — he smells heavenly, perfect, familiar, dizzying, lovely.)

Eames’ French is far worse than Arthur’s, so when he interjects he does so in his best haughty British accent, announcing that he’s never met this man before and would the concierge be so kind as to eject him from the premises, as Eames can’t be troubled by every mad fan off the streets in the privacy of his own hotel.

The concierge is about halfway through assuring Monsieur Eames that he will take care of this American with all due haste when he notices the way Arthur is glaring daggers at Eames and Eames is grinning back at him gleefully.

"May I introduce my husband," Arthur says in French, very drily indeed. _Je vous présente mon mari_ , just like that.

Eames smirks an apology at the concierge and wastes no more time, because Arthur’s coat and hair and scent are all very well, but Arthur’s brown eyes are irresistible, always have been. Arthur is stiff and annoyed at first, resisting Eames’ helpless embrace, but he gives in when Eames doesn’t relent, huffing out a wonderfully annoyed sigh and putting his arms round Eames at last.

It’s not easy to let go now that Eames has an armful of Arthur, but they are still in the lobby and the concierge is still two scant feet away, so Eames pulls back and wraps his hand around the handle of Arthur’s suitcase, rolls it towards the little antique lift at the other end of the lobby. Arthur follows closely. They’re not quite touching, but their shoulders are brushing, their arms, and Eames wants very badly to kiss Arthur’s quirking mouth, but he knows very well that loving someone to the moon and back means that once you start kissing them you might not be able to stop.

It’s a nice hotel, after all.

So Eames lets the back of his free hand swing against the soft leather of Arthur’s coat, clutches the suitcase handle, and darts hungry quick glances at Arthur, the circles under his eyes and the line of amusement flickering at the margin of his mouth.

"It was going to be a lot smoother," Arthur says when they gain the privacy of the lift. “There was going to be candlelight and champagne."

"Yes, well," Eames says, doing his best not to laugh outright at the disgruntled look on Arthur's face.

"Why should I travel with our marriage certificate anyway?" Arthur bursts out. "I mean, what if I were a woman? What if I'd changed my name and I was Mrs. Eames, would they still grill me to death at the front--"

It's half self-defense, of course; let Arthur get started on Big Brother and gay rights and counter-terrorism and there would be no stopping him. But the other half of the impulse is pure selfish want, Eames pressing Arthur to the side of the lift and kissing his mouth hard and long, gripping Arthur's arms and it's not really smooth, it's Eames' own version of getting trapped at the front desk except Eames is doing it to himself, caught in a sudden overwhelming surge of loneliness.

It doesn't make any sense, of course, feeling lonely now with Arthur in his arms, but loneliness is always the worst the moment before it ends. Usually it hits Eames in the walk up to the house, or in the last moments walking through the terminal before catching sight of Arthur at the luggage carousel, usually Eames is actually alone and can ride it out until he's washed up right in front of Arthur and it all recedes.

"Eames," says Arthur, and pushes him back gently. "The elevator stopped."

Eames hadn't even heard the ping of the bell, the quaint sweet sound of it that's been so pleasant to him at the end of a long day of rehearsal the last week. He steps back from Arthur, somewhere between embarrassed and grateful, and trips over his own feet trying to capture the handle of Arthur's suitcase and roll it out into the corridor.

"Ah, when," Eames says, digging for the keycard, clumsy fingered, "when did your flight get in?"

Arthur tells Eames when, and says something about how he'd gotten into the city, and something else about forgetting to stop at an ATM and being down to his last euro when he'd bought the champagne, which is warm now anyway.

Eames isn't listening at all, really.

"You're not listening at all, really," Arthur observes, smiling, carefully hanging up his coat.

"You came all this way to surprise me," Eames says, just now realizing how grand a gesture Arthur has made.

"Well," Arthur says modestly, "and to go shopping."

"Darling," Eames says, ignoring him, getting his arms around Arthur's waist with a little less desperation this time. "You must have missed me terribly."

"Right," says Arthur, "I'm the one who was calling every day and making pathetic noises and"--

"You were very brave to hide it," Eames says against Arthur's lips, between kisses.

When you are away from someone for a long time, your memory does a funny job, rewrites the other person slightly to fill in the foggy places. Arthur-in-Eames’-head is not quite the same person as Arthur-here-now, but it's delightful, finding all the places where Eames’ brain has been picturing Arthur just a little wrong: rediscovering his smoky voice and his muscle-roped forearms and how easy it is to make him smile after all, the lines that animate his dear face and the sweet indescribable scent that always lingers just behind his ears.

"Did you miss me?” Eames asks, not really knowing what he's saying, having gotten lost somewhere between unbuttoning Arthur's waistcoat and loosening his tie.

"I missed you," Arthur answers anyway, voice a little rough as his fingertip pulls down on Eames' lower lip.

“Do you love me forever and always?” Eames asks.

“For as long as I’m living,” Arthur answers, never smiling, quiet and serious and earnest and exactly like the brilliant Arthur that Eames remembers.


	2. Chapter 2

Arthur is good at many things, brilliant at most, but he is terrible at sleeping. Eames is not surprised, then, to wake up between four and five the next morning to hear the shower running and find the bed empty beside him. He badly wants to go back to sleep, not used to rising so early, but Eames forces himself to fumble for the phone and order up hot coffee and croissants.

He's nodded off again long before they arrive, though, and so the next thing Eames is aware of is Arthur poking him in the side and saying, "I need money for the tip." Eames waves Arthur towards the puddle of coins on the desk by the phone, rolls over and squints at the bellhop waiting not so subtly to be compensated, having ushered in a trolley with a french press and a domed platter of pastries.

One of the things Arthur is quite brilliant at is speaking French, and he does it whenever he can, rounding his mouth, pursing his lips like he is tasting the language, like he is kissing it.

" _Voilà. Merci de votre patience,_ " says Arthur, handing the bellhop a few Euros. " _Dites-moi, savez vous où je pourrais acheter Le Monde?_ "

" _Juste en face de l'hotel, Monsieur. Le stand un peu à droite en sortant._ "

" _Parfait! Merci beaucoup._ "

" _Je vous en prie. Bonne journée, Messieurs,_ " the bellhop says, nodding quickly at Eames as he exits the room and closes the door behind him.

"Mercy buckets," Eames says, scrabbling at his face, hoping against hope to get his eyes open more than a crack.

"Mm, look at this cream, it's practically yellow," Arthur says, ignoring Eames, communing with the cream pitcher and the sugar bowl. "Why do we live in America again?"

"Greatest country in the world," Eames suggests, edging a leg out from under the covers. Arthur is dressed already, of course, pressed and neat, groomed and shaven, the only sign of his recent shower being the damp curl of hair at the nape of his neck.

"Oh, wait, this is why," Arthur says suddenly, and holds up the petite porcelain cup they'd sent up for the coffee. "This is just indecent."

"I should have asked for a Big Gulp cup," Eames says, and sits up all at once to get it over with. "Pour me a thimble full of coffee too, will you, darling?"

Arthur shoos Eames off the bed to eat, as though there is something terrible about crumbs in a bed, as though Eames hasn't already had his morning pastry in that very spot the past month running. They end up crowded together round the trolley with napkins in their laps and butter dripping off their fingertips. Eames peels his croissant open into a triangle; Arthur is more polite with his and takes small bites beginning with one of its points.  
   
"What do you want to do today?" Eames asks, licking his fingers and watching Arthur stare down the last croissant.

"What's your schedule?" asks Arthur, sighing and putting the cover back over the plate.  
    
"Nothing, absolutely nothing,” Eames says. "Next show isn't until day after tomorrow."  
    
Arthur shakes his head and smiles wryly. "They work you hard, huh?"

"So, I believe I promised you shopping," Eames says, downing the last of his coffee, "but nothing's open for hours yet. Shall we head out and just wander round a little?"

"Sure," says Arthur, "you jump in the shower and I'll iron your clothes."  
    
"My clothes are fine," Eames says, wounded.  
   
"Right," says Arthur evenly, "in the shower, go."


	3. Chapter 3

Eames has to admit, looking down at himself as they head down the block, that Arthur's done _something_ impressive to Eames' shirt. It feels crisp but light in the early morning warmth. The cuffs of his pants are breaking neatly at the tops of his shoes. Ironing is another thing Arthur does brilliantly, probably.

They head to the nearest metro station, where Arthur takes obvious pleasure in trying to blend in with early Parisian commuters, flapping open his copy of the newspaper and frowning at the French articles. Unlike most Americans in Paris, Arthur does this quite well, with his European clothes. Arthur, like many Frenchmen, is a small neat dark-haired person, disinterested in the ads everywhere and the overhead announcements, too busy with his paper and his air of superiority to pay attention to his surroundings.

"Too bad you've quit smoking again," Eames says quietly to Arthur, not wanting to give him away. "It's the only thing missing."  
    
Arthur lifts an eyebrow, but he's pleased.

When they come up from the metro on the other side, they have a second breakfast at a sidewalk cafe, lingering over coffee and driving the waiter mad with requests for refills of their little dainty cups. Around them, Paris swells with the morning rush and subsides again. Arthur admires the Parisians as they walk past; still, it’s Eames’ foot he keeps bumping under the table.  
    
Eames likes Arthur a lot, but he hates shopping with him. Arthur is deliberate and slow when he browses a shop, and yet more deliberate, slower yet, when he finally makes up his mind to buy something. The only nice part of shopping with Arthur is getting to be with Arthur, but even that novelty wears off after an hour of listening to him murmur to himself about this designer or that subtle stripe or these pocket squares.

Eames leans on things and tries not to sigh too loudly.  

“Here,” Arthur says, when Eames stops trying to suppress his sighs, and hands Eames a hanger with a loud pink shirt. “Try it.”

Eames does sometimes like to try on the really weird things, the things no one is really meant to wear off the runway, even in Europe. Arthur likes to dress Eames up in the colours and styles he is not himself about to wear, and even if Eames isn’t about to buy anything at all at these mad prices, it’s nice to look at himself in the mirror. Eames is very handsome, after all, and Arthur is taking ages going from rack to rack and holding up suit jackets and rubbing his thumbs down silk ties.

Eames likes how he looks in the pink shirt, actually. He pulls at the collar and pouts at his reflection. He looks smashing in a pink shirt, truth be told.

“No,” says Arthur, coming out of the dressing room with green socks, because Arthur really does try on socks. He tries on everything. He is maddeningly slow.

“I look smashing in a pink shirt,” Eames points out.

“That pink shirt costs three hundred euros,” Arthur says, and Eames would tear it off in horror except he’s afraid he’d rip it and end up buying a three hundred euro pink shirt that is too ugly for him anyway.

Arthur finally buys three ties, one new pair of shoes, and two shirts that are not pink but still cost a fortune. He spends a lot of time looking sadly at a certain set of cufflinks, but finally relents and leaves them sitting on their black velvet pillow in the glass case.

Finally Eames thinks they are done (Arthur having spent a month’s salary on three ties, two shirts, and a pair of shoes) but then there’s a hat store, and they have to go in, because Arthur wears hats brilliantly as he does most things.

“I hate hats,” Eames tells Arthur.

Arthur puts on lots of hats, very thoughtfully, and looks rakish and old-timey and handsome.

Eames mimes hanging himself, finished with politeness.

“You might as well pace yourself with the dramatics,” Arthur says, unmoved. “After this we have to look for something for Philippa and James.”

Eames says a number of very satisfying swear words under his breath and leans on the glass case holding a range of hip flasks, waiting for Arthur to decide between the black fedora and the almost-black fedora.

    
    


A couple of hours later, after they’ve eaten lunch, Eames has to convince Arthur to go into a proper toy shop, because Arthur seems convinced that the children would be as overjoyed with designer clothing as Arthur himself is.

“Philippa is four years old,” Eames points out. “James is two.”

“Hermès is ageless,” Arthur says, almost sensibly. “And I would have loved to have a Dior tie as a kid.”

“Were you just the most boring child ever or have you forgotten what childhood is like?” Eames asks, scandalised.

Arthur makes a pained face at the toy shop window, with the train going round and round, and the dolls on little wooden chairs, and the wind-up penguin going hop-hop-hop. “I didn’t like toys,” he says. “They seemed — noisy and pointless.”

“Right, you’re not qualified, then,” Eames says, and tugs Arthur through the shop door. They are through the store and finished in five minutes flat — a Madeline ragdoll for Philippa, a chunky toddler Playmobil set for James — and Arthur for once doesn’t utter a word about Eames being too hasty in his choices, going pale and harried around the sixth repetition of the Mickey Mouse Club theme from the electronic display near the till.

Emerging, they discover that the day has grown warm, the streets more crowded, and it’s increasingly difficult to navigate the sidewalks encumbered by Arthur’s shopping bags. Arthur gives up pretending to be French when the fourth Parisian bumps into him. He glares and snaps, “ _Pardon_ ,” very nastily in a way that ironically makes him seem more French than ever.

“Back to the hotel, I think,” Eames says, steering them towards the steps heading down to the metro, because Arthur is eyeing passing smokers with visible envy now.

On the train, Arthur unwinds again, settling into his seat and looping a protective arm over his shopping bags on the seat next to him. “We need to get some wine,” he says in a very matter-of-fact way, like he’s reminding Eames of a daily chore that needs doing, but then he flashes such a look up at Eames through his lashes that Eames’ heart leaps up into his throat with anticipation.

Patience is sometimes its own reward.


	4. Chapter 4

Eames and Arthur rush, rush, rush all the way back to the hotel. They hurry through choosing a wine, they race into the patisserie and back out again with a box of sinful pastries, they take the top little basket of strawberries from the grocer without making sure it’s the nicest. They hasten through the hotel lobby and into the lift, down the corridor to their room, they stow Arthur’s purchases, they unwrap and unstop everything and lay it out on their small table, a little haphazardly, each throwing back half a glass of wine before all the hurry breaks open like a bursting balloon. Somehow they collide into each other in the middle of the room in stop-motion, Eames’ fingers sliding the knot of Arthur’s silken tie down little by little while kissing Arthur’s eyelids, while Arthur’s fingers bite into Eames’ sides and their breath stutters messily, out of time.

Now they’re here, Eames isn’t at all sure why they were in such an ungodly panic to arrive. They’ve got all the time in the universe, haven’t they? And there’s nothing to be gained from haste, not when there is so much to savour between them: the slip-grip-slide of that silk tie as it reluctantly slithers out from under Arthur’s collar, the dark pinpricks of Arthur’s mid-afternoon stubble on the sharp-lovely line of his jaw, the satisfying neat work of pushing small pearlized shirt buttons through tight starched buttonholes. Arthur has so much skin, and all of it soft and taut over his narrow frame. Doesn’t it all need kissing? Eames doesn’t want to miss a spot.

Later, afterwards, still warmed by the slanting afternoon light, they lie on mussed sheets and eat and drink. Arthur doesn’t say anything at all about crumbs in the bed as he drops tiny bits of chocolate from lazy happy fingers. “This is always what I think of,” says Arthur, nearly upsetting his wineglass as he reaches for another strawberry. Mattresses are not good tables, they’re too tippy and temperamental. “When I think of being with you, here.”

“Hedonist,” Eames says, even though he’s the one who hasn’t bothered to put underwear on again. “You’ve ruined Paris for me professionally. How can I work here again alone, now I know what it’s like having you with me?”

Arthur arches a dark brow and smirks, unrepentant, because Eames ruins Boston for Arthur every single time he comes home for a few weeks and leaves again. Arthur never says anything about it, not really, because he is adult and professional and spends a lot of hours teaching and working and driving around the city, practicing in his studio, eating lunch with Cobb, having departmental meetings about administrative minutiae, frowning at his dry-cleaning bill and dutifully feeding their cat Jeoffry while telling him he’s getting fat. What Arthur doesn’t do — no, not ever — is stand with his face buried in Eames’ hanging shirts; Arthur never drinks Earl Grey tea just for the pleasure of having Eames’ teapot out on the counter; he certainly doesn’t sometimes play through all of _Winterreise_ late at night, like he can draw Eames’ voice to him if he only presses the keys sweetly enough.

“Here, wait,” Arthur says, sensible and forward-thinking and adult, and shifts the wineglasses to the bedside table before he lets Eames in close enough to kiss him and kiss him, kiss him until the last bit of sadness is chased from his lovely brown eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

Eames wakes up thinking for a minute he's home, and it's not because Arthur is there with him. It’s the distinctly creepy feeling of being stared at while one's eyes are shut.

"Jeoffry?" Eames says suspiciously, barely awake.

Arthur's chin is not unlike a cat paw, actually, the way it presses hesitantly and then more insistently into the flat of Eames' chest.

"I need to practice," Arthur says.

"Right now?" Eames asks, still not opening his eyes. Arthur's chin is scratchy.

"Today," says Arthur.

"And you didn't think to pack a piano?" Eames asks.

“Can you call the opera and see if I can use something in the hall somewhere?" Arthur asks, not rising to this bait.

“I don’t know, can I do it after I wake up instead of before?" Eames asks, but not with much hope.

"Anything will do," says Arthur, ignoring this too. "It doesn't have to be the concert grand. Just a small grand will do, whatever the repetiteur uses is fine."

"You don't have a bloody concert for months," Eames protests, finally working a hand up and pushing down on Arthur's head, trying clumsily to urge it down onto Eames' shoulder.

"That's not the point," says Arthur, just as Eames knew he would.

"Fine," Eames says muzzily. "In an hour, I'll call."

Arthur's head settles down almost immediately, soft slippery hair under Eames' fingers. For a moment the matter seems closed, but then Arthur speaks again. "But if the concert grand is available I'd use that instead," he says.

"Oh my god," Eames says.

"What is it anyway, the piano? What do they use over here?”

"It's a French make called Shut-the-hell-up-you-bastard,” Eames replies.

Arthur laughs.

"One hour," Eames says again, and curls his index finger in the warm space behind Arthur's ear, drifting back into sleep.

Eames makes the call while Arthur is in the shower, and it's all set up in a matter of minutes. The concert grand is free this morning, says someone from the opera house, and Monsieur Eames is welcome to make use of it. Eames goes into the bathroom to share the news, and also to ogle Arthur a little through the veil of the shower curtain. He can never get enough ogling in with Arthur around, honestly.

Arthur dresses in one of his new designer shirts with one of his new designer ties round his neck, standing in front of the mirror and frowning proudly at his reflection as he combs his hair just so. Arthur is vain as a peacock, probably more vain than Eames, but looking at him in his crisp shirt, his tie, his braces, his impeccable trousers, Eames can’t quite fault Arthur’s pride in his appearance. He is very nice to look at. Eames sits on the bed and looks at him some more while Arthur buttons into a waistcoat and fastens his titanium watch around his wrist.

“Get dressed,” Arthur tells Eames, sitting down to tie his new designer shoes onto his feet. He could have said this sooner, but he likes Eames watching him even if he never admits as much. “Hurry up.”


	6. Chapter 6

Eames half-hoped they could be casual, slip in the stage door of the opera house with a wave to the security guard, head to the hall and let Arthur at the piano in the half-light of an empty house. His hopes are dashed when the director of the opera is waiting to meet them backstage.

“Monsieur Eames, I was hoping to have a chance to meet your w—“ begins Georges, but Eames cuts him off swiftly and steers Arthur forward with a hand at the small of his back.

“Roger Georges, this is my — my husband Arthur Goldberg.”

The director's eyebrows lift a good half-inch but otherwise his expression is impressively steady and pleasant. "Oh, I had no idea you were, ah," he begins, and sticks out his hand to shake Arthur's.

"Married?" Eames suggests lightly, smiling. "Yes, well, my mistake for not mentioning it, I do take off my ring for performances.”

Arthur cuts a look over at Eames but shakes hands politely enough and switches into French. “He likes to play straight,” Arthur says coolly, “I have no idea why.”

“I thought perhaps my command of English was failing me,” says Georges, smiling. “Charles is always speaking of his ‘missus’. _Ça veut bien dire sa femme, pas sa maîtresse, non?_?”

“ _Ni son mari_ ,” Arthur adds wryly. “Eames thinks he’s funny, doesn’t realise that it’s only funny if other people understand the joke.”

“Can a man not be funny in isolation?” Eames asks philosophically, smiling at Arthur. “Look, it’s just easier saying ‘missus’ than wading through the whole explanation.”

Arthur reaches into his jacket’s breast pocket, extracts a fountain pen, and pulls Eames’ palm towards him to write on it. When he’s done, Eames reads and grins: _Je suis marié à un homme_. I am married to a man. “For future reference,” says Arthur. “We can look into a tattoo if your memory continues to fail you.”

“Romantic,” Eames says sweetly, because Arthur is.

“If you’d be so kind,” Arthur says to Georges, all polite professionalism, “which way to the concert grand?”

Georges escorts Arthur towards the piano, comes back towards Eames with an amused look he’s not trying very hard to hide.

“This is why I don’t let him meet people,” Eames says pointedly. “They inevitably wind up taking his side in every little row.”

“I had always thought your wife must have the patience of an angel,” says Georges thoughtfully.

“Wrong on both counts,” Eames says in a dark tone, but he can’t help smiling anyway as Arthur’s scales and drills burst into life, filling the immense hall with his fearless ringing sound.

  



	7. Chapter 7

The next night Eames is performing, or will be if he can ever leave the hotel room.

“Go, you’re going to be late for your call time,” Arthur says, as though he’s not ironing his shirt wearing nothing but clingy navy boxer-briefs.

“You’ll find me afterwards,” Eames says again, to be certain.

“I’ll wait by the doors to backstage, and you can text me if you can’t find me,” Arthur says, beginning to sound exasperated and fond all at once.

“I’m going to sing brilliantly,” Eames promises wildly, and pulls himself away from Arthur at last. “I’m going to sing better than I’ve ever sung before, just for you.”

“I’m bracing myself to be astonished,” Arthur says, mouth quirking, glancing up from starching his collar. “Go.”

“For you,” Eames says again, and grabs his key, wallet, mobile, and backs out of the room.


	8. Chapter 8

Eames sings magnificently. He sings better than ever before, he can see it reflected back in the surprised and perhaps envious eyes of his cast members. Eames sweeps round the stage in his costume and sings wonderfully and sweats under his heavy make-up and resists the tickling urge to look out to the orchestra level where Arthur’s seated.

“Is it true?” asks the French tenor who’s playing Des Grieux, at intermission, the pair of them dabbing carefully at their hairlines to sop up the perspiration.

“Is what true?” asks Eames, unbuttoning his coat and flapping it open and shut to air himself out a little.

“Your famed ’missus’ is here tonight,” the tenor clarifies. “Georges was cackling about it earlier, something about having made your wife’s acquaintance yesterday.”

“The missus is indeed in attendance,” Eames confirms, grinning. “You’ll have a chance to meet up afterwards.”

“What, no warnings about keeping my French charms to myself?”

“Oh, I’d imagine the missus would quite enjoy flirting with the likes of you,” Eames says archly, and then the stage manager comes into the room and shouts about the third act, and Eames is buttoning and fixing his wig and checking to make sure his rouge isn’t running.

There’s a noticeable uptick in the applause when it comes time for Eames’ curtain call, and Manon — herself quite a renowned soprano — blows him a kiss in front of God and everyone. Eames is pleased, proud, probably strutting a little, but he can’t help it, because tonight he gets to swan around with Arthur on his arm, and Arthur is sure to reward Eames’ performance later on with something equally impressive if less public.

But though Eames tears off his costume, cleans up, dresses again in the trousers and shirt Arthur had chosen for him, Arthur’s not at the door waiting. Eames checks his phone to see the time and finds two text messages waiting for him.

 _Not feeling well. Left at intermission._

And:

 _Really not well. At St-Antoine hospital. Come when you can._

Eames heads for the stage door at a dead run.


	9. Chapter 9

It is a frantic half-hour, first riding in a cab and trying to think of new and more impressive ways to say _Hurry the fuck up_ in French as the driver turns what should be a five-minute run into a ten-minute crawl, then finally skidding into the hospital’s lobby, demanding in broken desperate phrases to know where he might find the accident and emergency wing. At length he’s pointed in the right direction, and then it’s a matter of convincing the woman behind the desk that Eames has any business whatsoever knowing what might have been done with an American man named Arthur who had come in that night.

“ _C'est mon mari_ ,” Eames insists, pointing at his wedding band for proof, wishing he’d taken up Arthur on his joke and gotten the fact tattooed on his arm, his palm, his fucking forehead if it convinced people. “Go fucking ask him yourself,” Eames shouts, breaking into angry English rather than struggling any longer to find the words in French. “Please,” he adds as an afterthought, a little piteously, and the woman purses her mouth before lifting a phone and dialling, probably calling security to come and toss this mad Englishman out of the hospital.

But no, the next moment a doctor walks up to the desk and says, in a glorious South African accent, in _English_ , “You’d be Charles Eames? Come with me.”

Eames grabs the doctor by the arm, unable to walk another step without knowing — “Is he all right? Where is he?”

“He’s fine, he will be fine,” says the doctor, kindly. “Your husband has simple appendicitis, we took him straight up to the operating theatre.”

Eames sags into the nearest chair, shaken and grateful and weirdly giddy. “That utter bastard,” he says, scrubbing his hands over his face. “‘Not feeling well’, my arse.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Can you find out what they did with my Gucci shirt?” is the first thing Arthur says as he wakes up from the anaesthesia, looking pale and fragile against the harsh white of the linens, lit by the fluorescent light over the head of his bed. “I think I sort of threw up on it but it might be salvageable.”

But before Eames can say _Really?!_ or throttle him or kiss his forehead, Arthur’s eyes slide shut again and he’s drifting away on a narcotic cloud.


	11. Chapter 11

Arthur’s surgical incision is small, a little stapled-shut mouth like something out of a Tim Burton movie, a weird unwelcome landmark on Arthur’s familiar flat muscled belly.

“Stop it,” Arthur says, catching Eames staring as the nurse checks the site.

“It’s like a door to another universe,” Eames says, still staring. “Who knows what’s on the other side?”

“ _Alors, ça y est? On a pété?_ ” asks the nurse, who is holding Arthur’s breakfast tray hostage until the answer is ‘oui’.

Arthur glares across at Eames and shakes his head balefully.

“I have, if that counts,” Eames says. “You know, we’re one flesh according to the wedding vows.”

The nurse ignores him (she’s learned quickly since coming on shift at dawn that morning) and sweeps out of the room. Arthur pulls a face and sighs, still starving and sadly fartless. “You should go back to the hotel and get some sleep,” he says, pulling up the blankets, looking pathetic.

“No,” Eames says, resolute, “every time I leave you alone you lose an internal organ.” He drags his chair closer again, free to hover now the nurse is gone, slips his hand up over Arthur’s forearm, squeezes his elbow because it carries no risk of tangled tubing and wrenched IV needles. “I was really brilliant last night,” he says quietly, and kisses the skin just below Arthur’s hospital gown sleeve.

“I vaguely remember thinking that,” Arthur agrees, reaching across with his other hand to stroke Eames’ hair like Eames is the one in the hospital bed, “between the waves of nausea, chills, and pain.”

“You should have had me take you,” Eames says for the dozenth time. “You should have come backstage and found me at the interval.”

“What, and deprive everyone else of your brilliance?” Arthur says, squirming closer gingerly so he can tilt Eames’ head up for a proper kiss. “Never.”

Eames straightens up after a while, rises and helps Arthur resettle against the flat sterile pillows, tucks the blanket high around his neck because Arthur is always cold and the hospital is old and draughty. Arthur is uncharacteristically cooperative, sleepy, pliant, and is half-asleep before Eames finishes tucking him in.


	12. Chapter 12

Eames calls Arthur’s mother, who fusses over French hospitals, and then his gran, who fusses over the French in general. Arthur is fine, Eames says to each of them, he’s absolutely fine. Isn’t he sitting up in his bed only half a day after his surgery? Isn’t he terrorizing the nursing staff over the indignities they offer him? Certainly Arthur’s colour isn’t what Eames would call good — sort of a pale yellowish green — but Eames has seen worse on Arthur, and mostly after a long night of hard drinking.

“Oh, I just bet,” says Arthur’s mother, exasperated by her son.

“So I recall,” says Gran, a little more amused.

Eames rubs Arthur’s cramping inactive legs, which are so used to carrying Arthur around at a brisk pace. He gets the television hooked up in the room so they can watch American shows dubbed into French, badly. Eames runs to the nurses’ station when Arthur goes glassy-eyed with a mild fever in the afternoon. By the end of the day Eames thinks he’s done a bang-up job playing nursemaid, especially given Arthur’s own horror of keeping watch at a sickbed.

“Go back and get some sleep,” Arthur says the third time Eames jolts awake, nodding off in his hard chair. “They’re going to kick you out eventually anyway.”

The hotel room is quiet and smells of Arthur. Eames curls unhappily in the middle of the vast bed and sleeps uneasily.

Arthur is released early next day, and he and Eames take a winding expensive cab ride back to the hotel while Arthur looks exhausted and listless. He spends most of the morning sleeping off the trial of getting from hospital to hotel, and the afternoon resisting Eames’ efforts to keep him high on his prescription painkillers.

“You’re not nearly the degenerate my grandmother thinks you are,” Eames reproaches him, shaking the little orange bottle one last time.

Arthur edges the blankets down and casts a rather significant glance in a certain direction.

“Oh,” says Eames brightly. “Well, a different sort of degenerate then.”


	13. Chapter 13

Arthur is beautiful, and brilliant, and has many attractive qualities, but he is completely mad.

“You went cycling?” Eames asks, heart still racing from waking to find Arthur gone, his second morning back from the hospital.

“I told you I wanted to try those Vélib’ public bikes,” Arthur says, sweaty and flushed and cheerful. He waves a grease-speckled white paper bag aloft. “Look, hand-rolled croissants. Had to go over to the 13th arrondissement to find them, too.”

“Are you bleeding?” Eames asks, stunned. “Is your colon popping out of your incision?”

“It’s fine,” Arthur says, waving a hand, tugging off his jacket. “Bit sore, nothing big.”

“You are a complete nutter,” Eames marvels.

“Fine, no croissants for you,” Arthur says, grinning, dimpling, gorgeous and mad, and Eames really does love him to the moon and back, like meat loves salt, forever and for always, as long as he’s living and maybe even for a long time after that.

  
FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Notes:
> 
> Many thanks owed for this one, firstly to Xen for recruiting me into this challenge and forming up our little team. I keep telling her (and need to tell Penny too) that I can't quite get over how amazing it is to be working with the pair of them, how much better their contributions make such a simple little tale, how I'm not worthy, etc. etc. but IT IS ALL TRUE. Xen also provided just about all of the French dialogue you see in the text because my four years of French immersion only took me up to about age 8 and that is not nearly far enough. Penny's superlative skills as a reader/actor make my every little sentence sound so much better/funnier than they were; I have loved her podfic for years and it gives me a thrill hearing her reading something I've written. Thanks as always to Lately for beta-reading, cheerleading, idea-generating, and generally being persistent about saying "Have you written more?" just about every time we talked.
> 
> On a writerly note, it will have escaped no one's attention (I hope) that this story is written and presented somewhat in the style of a children's book. This springs from my habit of writing almost point-form stories to Lately over chat when I get stuck on actual writing -- little snippets of fic that tend to sound slightly ridiculous out of context ("Eames looks smashing in a pink shirt.") I mentioned this quality of part of the text to Xen, she agreed and suggested it would be fun to illustrate a story, and then that vortex of fannish energy took over and we flapped our hands and capslocked our glee to each other for a while. In the end, Xen and Penny both agreed to quite a bit more work than you'd usually see for a short story, and I revamped much of what I'd already written to have some of that storybook quality. Inspirations you may have spotted in the text include Robert Munsch's "Love You Forever", the Appalachian folktale "Like Meat Loves Salt", and of course Ludwig Bemelmans' "Madeline" for the whole Parisian vibe as well as Arthur's medical drama. There are probably more ~~rip-offs~~ inspirations in there too, but the general flavour is meant to reflect the idea that Eames (bless him) is wonderfully self-centered as any storybook protagonist, and as any child for that matter; of course, he's meant to be equally mischievous, charming, and capable of loyalty and love as any classic children's book hero too.
> 
> ~Plor
> 
>  
> 
> Editor/Illustrator's Notes:
> 
> Ok so, this is a little bit my fault. I just- I had so much fun working with Penny on Ach, des Kaben Augen, that I just wanted an excuse to do it again! So I went to Plor and said "Pod_together! Steinway! Write me something! Penny will totally read it! *handwaves* Pretty please?" and simultaneously went to Penny and said: "Pod_together! Steinway! Plor will totally write something! *handwaves* You'll read it! Pretty please?" Somehow, both of them agreed to indulge me, despite Plor jet-setting halfway across the world at the time, and Penny apparently being in the midst of podficcing ALL of bandom :P I LOVE YOU GUYS, SERIOUSLY. Much love also goes to anatsuno and yue-ix for last minute editing beta and handholding <3 <3 <3
> 
> Art-wise, I have never produced this many drawings in such a short time, OMG! This style was so liberating. Just a series of sketched outlines over selected references, and a splash of colour from a watercolour texture and tada! Much easier than my initial idea, which was a series of Quentin Blake-y cartoons like in those Roald Dahl books I loved as a child. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to make a squiggly deformed Eames look remotely attractive :P Therein lies Blake's genius, I realize, because I remember finding the BFG quite dashing in that book... Regardless, I hope I've managed to retain a bit of the charm of those children's book in my illustrations. Thank you once more to Yue for the quick and always insightful art beta.
> 
> ~xen
> 
>  
> 
> Reader's Notes:
> 
> It happened exactly as they said! *points up*. And it's not ALL OF BANDOM (just most of it).
> 
> I adored working with Xen on Ach... and I was SO flattered that Plor wanted me to read one of her stories again, as I am very much in love with this Arthur, and this Eames. I think together we make a good job of Happily Ever After :-) As a performer, this story was a lovely thing to be given. I had so much to work with, from the story book style to the snippets of French and the rhythms of Eames's speech. I should note that the French and South African accents were Xen's idea and she encouraged me to leave them in. Thank you to Klb and Paraka for hosting this challange, to Plor for writing such a delightful Eames for me to play with, and to Xen for betaing, handholding, and making me sound much much better than I am. To continue the bandom theme, she is totally the Patrick Stump to my Pete Wentz, and we are all better off for that.
> 
> ~Penny


End file.
